Blog – Motion Worship – Video Loops, Countdowns, & Moving Backgrounds for the Christian Church

How to Jumpstart a Sermon-Based Small Group Curriculum

As a teaching pastor, creating sermon series that will serve your congregations is an important part of your job description. From finding the right scripture, narrowing in on salient themes, and constructing messages that will build meaningfully week after week, the time and intention that goes into crafting these series shouldn’t have to end after everyone leaves the sanctuary for Sunday brunc...

How to Plan Your Church Calendar A Year in Advance

New year, new you! Ok, maybe not a completely new you. But January 1st offers a fresh opportunity to set your church calendar up for success in the new year. Building out an entire calendar advance can feel intimidating, but it can help reduce overwhelm and scrambling later on in the year. Looking at your content from a bird’s eye view can also help you avoid obvious holes or redundancies in you...

How to Motivate and Reward Church Staff Without Promotion Opportunities

The church can be a great place to work when its at its best; the environment is comfortable, the people are friendly, and the mission is meaningful. But for many small to mid-size churches, there often isn’t much “upward mobility” or room for improvement. Most churches have two, maybe three “levels” on their organizational chart. Without room for promotions, it can be tricky to make sta...

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How to Reduce Staff and Volunteer Turnover

When you’re trying to develop a solid culture and further the mission of your church, losing staff and volunteers in droves can be Demoralizing. Not only is it frustrating, but it costs you time, money, and productivity that sets everyone back. Before we talk about strategies for retaining and developing your people, it’s important to understand the reasons why people leave in the first pl...

How Do You Talk About Pastor Appreciation Month?

I’m uncomfortable, you’re uncomfortable, everyone’s uncomfortable. October is almost here, and if you’re a pastor, you know what that means – it’s pastor appreciation month. Which, if we’re being honest, feels delicate. When I served as a pastor, I was always the first to say that I didn’t need any special recognition. And while I didn’t NEED the extra recognition, I think ...

Tips for Elevating Your Youth Ministry’s Set Design

Stage design is a powerful tool for creating atmosphere and setting the tone for your youth to connect with God and each other. When done well, set and stage design has the ability to elevate the impact of what you are sharing from the stage. When done poorly or without much consideration, it has the potential to distract and take away from your overall message. Most youth ministries have littl...

Tips for Getting Worship Team Volunteers to Prepare

A lot of musicians from the church draw a strange line between worship and performance, as if the two are mutually exclusive. There’s often this presumption that if you’re worried about the music, you’re not worshiping, and that performance always pales in comparison to the importance of being engaged in worship. And while this is an incredibly “noble” intention behind why many volunt...

Establishing Boundaries as a Church Admin

As a church admin, it can be a challenge to maintain appropriate boundaries when you work at the same place you worship. Coworkers might want to talk shop on Sunday mornings when you’re there for your Sabbath, or you might get pulled into emergency volunteer situations by virtue of your day job. As you merge the personal and the professional, you might even find it more difficult than you’d li...

6 Tips for Attracting Children’s Ministry Volunteers

Recruiting, developing, and retaining volunteers for your children’s ministry is no small task. If you’ve been working in a children's ministry for any amount of time, you understand what an important role volunteers play in the lives of your kids. They interact, lead, and shape these young minds and help make your gatherings safe and possible. Finding and keeping volunteers engaged can be ...

Should You Be Recording Your Worship Rehearsals?

If you’ve upgraded your mixing console in the past 10 years, it’s most likely a digital desk. And while a new sound board isn’t going to magically make anyone better at singing, playing an instrument, or mixing, here’s something you can do that has the potential to directly impact the quality of your musicians and techs: Record Your Rehearsals How often do you change the arrangement...

Worship Pastors: Why and How to Start Using Music Directors

I’ve been to a lot of churches that don’t have assigned music directors. It seems to mostly be smaller churches that feel they either don’t have the resources/personnel necessary for a Music Director (MD), or just generally don’t feel it’s needed. I’m here to tell you that almost any church is not only capable of introducing an MD role to their teams, but will actually be better off fo...

Tips for Sharing Worship Thoughts Between Songs

Talking in between songs is difficult. You’re often coming out of a highly energetic moment with people engaging in worship and singing along with the team... and then the lights come down, it gets really quiet, and you’re essentially expected to “preach” something of value to everyone. It can be scary. Even for those who have completely overcome the fear of speaking in front of everyon...

How to Make Your Church More Accessible for Disabilities

Did you know that 1 in 4 American adults have some sort of disability? That means that it’s more than likely that someone you know, someone you work with, or someone you attend church with is living with a disability. Becoming a more accessible church is about more than just your building. It's about cultivating a community of belonging that sees, esteems, and includes all people. In Genesis ...

Circumvent Common Easter Sunday Disasters

Easter Sunday is one of the biggest weekends of the year for churches. While you’re putting finishing touches on your resurrection celebration, it doesn’t hurt to incorporate a plan for how to manage any potential fail points. Securing a few precautionary measures will help you feel confident to tackle any last minute issues or demands when Easter rolls around and elevate your peace of mind so...

5 Very Common Church Presentation Mistakes

Working as a media or tech director at a church is a stressful job. You’re usually there before anyone else, and stay longer than everyone else. You are never in the spotlight and rarely get the acknowledgement you deserve for how much you hold the service together. To be honest, the entire thing couldn’t happen without you. The band, the lights, the speaker system, the microphone, mixing, the...

7 Tips for Facilitating Successful Online Meetings

Just like the rest of the world, people in ministry are holding a lot of meetings online these days. Almost everyone can agree that there are plenty of pros and cons to these virtual calls. We might miss gathering together and might be struggling with “zoom fatigue” but still appreciate the flexibility connecting remotely affords. Whether you love it or hate it, online meetings are a very real...

4 Things to Consider as You Plan Your Christmas Services

It’s officially fall, which, in ministry-world, means Christmas is just around the corner. As we all know, the holiday season is a huge deal for churches and it pays to be prepared. Here are four tips to give you direction and help keep you grounded as you take on one of the busiest and most beautiful times of the year. 1) Know Your Point Just like with any sermon series, the first thin...

Tips for Making a Fall-Themed Church Stage Design

Fall is around the corner already! Between fall kickoff, youth events, the start of small groups, and all other activities your church may be vamping up, fall can be a really busy season for most ministries. The “back-to-school” mentality gets kids excited, which can also give parents a bit more headspace to get involved in church activities. With all that said, you want your fall church se...

3 Tips for Managing Details as a Church Admin

As a church administrative assistant, you’re constantly juggling details. Your day is jam packed with going to meetings, taking notes, revising plans before Sunday morning, scheduling building rooms for groups, and standing in the middle of a hurricane of last-minute requests. It can be… draining to say the least. Being a church admin is a very dynamic job, and it can be difficult to proper...

The Church Admin’s Guide to Bridging Communication Gaps: 3 Steps to Reframe and Refresh Administrative Processes

Most of the time, the success of a team boils down to the quality of its communication. A church staff is a delightfully diverse array of people who all have different ways of thinking and communicating. There are big-pictured visionaries, energetic people-lovers, and detailed thinkers, like you. The good news? Despite your differences, you all share a greater vision that brings you together. A...